ZOOM, Series I; 429

Zoom 429, Hoyt-Weisbrot, re-edit 12678, WGBH-TV, Boston. Presentation of Zoom is made possible in part by a grant from General Foods Corporation. Zoom, zoom, zoom-a-zoom. Come on and zoom-a-zoom-a-zoom. Everybody's doing it. Everybody's doing it. Everybody's having a ball, yeah. So won't you zoom, zoom, zoom-a-zoom. Come on and zoom-a-zoom-a-zoom. I'm Powder. I'm Tishy. I'm Red. I'm Kate. I'm Norman. I'm Tracy.

I'm Tommy. I'm Carmen. I'm David. I'm Andre. Who are you? What do you do? How are you? Let's hear from you. We need you. So won't you zoom, zoom, zoom-la-zoom. Come on and zoom-la-zoom-la-zoom. Come on, give it a try. We're gonna show you just why. This program is funded by grants from McDonald's Corporation and McDonald's Restaurants Fund, and by public television stations, the Ford Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Oh! Here's how to make your own bandana pillow.

Put them together. And then you pin them down in each corner. You saw all the way around, but at one corner, leave about five or six inches, so then you can stuff it. After it's done, it looks like this. Then you turn it inside out, so the seam will be inside. You can stuff your pillow with scraps of cloth or foam rubber. You keep on stuffing it, and then when you're done, it looks like this.

Good night. We've put the instructions for making a B&D and a pillow on a Zoom card. If you want one, just... And be sure to include a saisy with your letter. A saisy has a self-addressed stamped envelope. My name is Elisa Israel. I'm in the 8th grade at the Thalman Shechter School. Every morning we go to Tfilot.

which is traditional morning prayers. It's sort of a fresh way to start the day. One of the reasons I like going to a Jewish school is that it's a sort of continuation of my family life. Pesach, or Passover in English, is one of the most important holidays on the Jewish calendar. The Seder is the ceremony in the beginning of Passover. We celebrate Passover to commemorate the fact that the Jews left Egypt 2,000 years ago or so and that we're free people. We convene to recall our past, to explain our present, and to think about our future. One of the purposes of the Seder is not only to retell the story of leaving Egypt but also to sort of relive it in your mind. Each and every one of us is preparing to leave Egypt this evening.

And now, to be sure, we leave nothing out of the Seder. We sing together the table of contents, which you'll have to look for in your Haggadahs. Because my father is a rabbi, he understands Judaism more, and I think because he understands it more, he can convey it better and can get it across to other people better. That's sort of helpful because we do a lot of talking about Jewishly oriented things. Passover is celebrated in the spring. I have a good time at Pesach. I think it's really a fun holiday because our family has made a really big deal out of it. You know, the theory is the more the merrier for our Seder. Preparing for the Seder is a lot of stuff to do and everybody has to help.

So I made the wine this year. I got some grapes from some friends of ours, and I made wine. One thing I really like about Hebrew is that in some ways, it makes me feel closer to my religion because I can understand when I'm reading in the prayers, and I can understand what I'm saying. One of the classes I take at school is Hebrew literature. I like that class because it's not only using the Hebrew that I know for like for prayer and for reading the Bible and the psalm or solemn things, but it's also something that I can have fun using it for. Dip your parsley in the salt water, and together, Baruch Atah Adonai,

Elameinu Nelech Olam, V'orek Uri Adama. A lot of things we do at Passover are symbolic of things that happened in the past. Like the morning before the Seder, we burned breadcrumbs to symbolize that we've gotten rid of all the chamehs, which is anything that has leavening in it. And we have to get rid of all of the leavening because when the Jews were leaving Egypt, they were in such a hurry that when they baked bread for the journey, it didn't have time to rise. So it was matzah, so we only eat matzah and we don't eat leavened things. one of the things i like about ceremonies is that it's a way of not just saying prayers and

saying this and singing that it's just a way of doing and not just saying he combined a piece of matzah and maror and ate them together so that he might observe the precept handed down to him exactly as his father had before him. I think I feel close to all the people at the Seder because we're all Jews. And we're there to celebrate something Jewish. And it's just a whole spirit of people together celebrating this really important holiday. What an awful night. It's a terrible road, and I think I'm lost in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Hmm, my fuel gauge is low. I wonder what time it is. 12 o'clock midnight, and the date is Friday the 13th. What bad luck. What else could happen? I'm in a lot of gas. Hey, wait a minute.

Isn't that an old houseway at the top of the hill over there? Maybe I'm in luck. Phew. Wow, what a clock. Well, what is it that you want, young man? Uh, well, see, my car got stuck down the hill on the road. So could I borrow some gas, please? Well, I don't have automobiles, so I don't have any gasoline. Oh, no. but considering the hour i guess you could spend the night oh thank you that's so kind of you ma'am come on in i'll show you to your room thank you ma'am that's really so kind of you you have an honest face young man well here's your room thank you but there's one thing i must warn you about see that door down there oh yeah the pink one way down at the end of the hall yes that door must

never be opened why not that door must never be opened that door must never be open. Oh, this is a creepy old house. I'm not sleepy at all. I wonder what's behind the pink The pink door. I think I'll check it out. This is ridiculous. I just gotta find out what's behind the pink door. Maybe Granny's hiding something, stolen goods, or maybe worse. That door must never be opened.

I didn't mean anything by it. I was just curious. That door must never be opened. Never be opened. Never be opened. Well, now that you know my secret, young man, don't let the pink monster touch you. Anything you say, ma'am. I was just curious. I was just looking. No!

He's out! He's out! The monster's out! Oh, no! Now you've done it! Tag, you're it! More than anything else, Zoom needs plays. So if you have written a play or a skit, or if you feel like writing one, just put it in an envelope and... Try some C-double-O-N-B-O-X-3-5-0 Boston, that's O-2-1-3-4

Well, I think I'd like to live in the suburbs. Not in the city, but not way out in the country. If you live too far out in the country, I think, sort of isolated, and I wouldn't like being lonely. But if you live too deep in the city, all the smog and you don't have much space to, you know, you don't have much room to play in. But if you live in the suburbs, you can commute like 15 minutes away from the city. Just go right back home to the country. I like to live in the suburbs, but since I've been living in the city for six years, I'm used to it. And then I couldn't go, you know, live in the suburbs until I was older. because if I moved there now, I would miss all my friends. It's just different living in the suburbs or in the country than living in the city. A lot of people say that it's dirty and a lot of people do bad things there,

but it's not really that way. In some places. Yeah, in some places, but not where I live. because where we live there's a lot of parks and the kids usually hang around in one spot you know not like a lot of white puerto rican and black like i i hang around with all kinds you know it's like i've met i've never met somebody prejudiced there yeah because everybody all different races live there yeah it's been nice i think i like to live in the suburbs I live in like the suburbs now, but it's a little part of the city though, but it's not like deep in the city, it's like on the outline of the city. It's fun living in the city, but then, you know, like I have a friend Claire and she used to invite me up with her family because they used to rent a house up in New Hampshire. And it was nice to get away from, you know, the city and go out to the country.

But then sometimes you get closer like homes thinking that's not me where I where I live now is really It's nice because I got bored of where I was living I lived where I was living for nine years and you why live there? I'll call your life and where I live in you know like in the woods right now And it is just it's beautiful up there, and it's really all new and you can you can use it all up for Do you have a lot of land around your house? Yeah, yeah, it's really beautiful. Hey, doggy! Meet me downstairs. OK. My name is Dexter Maxwell. I live in Harlem, New York.

I live in a four-room apartment. My room, the bare room, my mother's room, and the kitchen. And I have my own room, but my mother share her room with a different room. It's really only one bedroom. I got Dini. I got Tracy. I got Troy. I got Milton. OK. 2-4. 2-4. 3-4. Let us 3-4, man. Well, when we play in the street, cars and trucks, everything come by, but when they do, we just move out the way and keep playing. We play football in the street, basketball, baseball, and just stoop ball. In stoop ball, the object of the game is to get a ball and hit it against the sidewalk or the curb. The other team have to catch the ball after you hit it off the wall or the curve, and then they run to the bases. It's like baseball, but you don't use a bat.

How much will you have? I've lived with my mother by myself for 12 years. My mother works for a stock company, EF Hutton, and sometimes when I have holidays or we have half a day or get off early, I usually go down and work with her to Wall Street. Then when she goes into the building, I just take the train and come back home. When I get on the subway, I just walk in the train. Then I sit down and I start looking around. I'll see different kinds of people. Then I start reading signs, advertisements on top of the train. Not on top, but near the top of the trains. And then I just keep reading. And then after I finish, I just keep peeking around, looking at people. There's somebody, like, reading a book next to me. I just take a few peeks over there. And I just take a couple of peeks there.

The people are interesting because when I get on the train, Chinese people look at me because I'm interesting to them. And to me, they're interesting because the way they look, the way they talk. Thank you. I don't have a father or brothers or sisters. I'm the only one in the family. And my mother is a little girl, and she can't do the things I want her to do. I used to watch cartoons.

After cartoons, around 3 o'clock, the commercial used to come on about big brothers, and they be showing how they be playing football and washing the cars. So one day I asked my mother, could she give me a big brother? And most of the times you have to wait for a while until you get a big brother. He was the first day I went. After that, we started meeting on weekends. People I know in my group, when they're black, they usually have white big brothers so i thought mines would be white but he wasn't well it's better for me because he lived near the district so i don't have to travel when i first met him he didn't like to go to movies that much after a while he started going the way he says sometimes and the way I say.

Then we started going to movies almost every week. So now we like movies. I joined in dancing three years ago. I was in fifth grade. Second year, eighth grade boys started coming. because they just wanted to watch the girls. They didn't want to really dance. They just came to watch the girls. Well, then they started dancing with us. We do African dances, ballet, Caribbean, Mexican. Movement feels like a sport. Like you're playing basketball, you have to move. When you're playing football, you have to run and stretch your arms to catch. It's like all the sports mixed into one. ¶¶

Lots of kids have sent in poems about cities, and we've taken three of them and sent them to music. The poems are by Valerie Lacy of Chicago, Illinois, Patricia Talon of Manchester, New Hampshire, and Tammy Fishnick of Berwyn, Illinois. And the song is called City Child. I am a city child. I live on the tip-top floor Of an old apartment filled in With a very quickie door. I zigzagged through the traffic I ride the playground swings I dashed onto the subway As if I had real wings We played ball against the steps And hopscotch on the street

And cats and eggs and giant steps And even hide-go-seek I am a city child I live on the tip-top floor Of an old apartment building With a very creaky door The city comes to life at night While children sleep its eyes are bright A city walks, a city talks A city grumbles, jingles, grumbles A city chuckles, groans and sighs Sometimes a city even cries City child, what you doing now, city child? Where you going now, city child?

What you up to now? Do skyscrapers ever grow tired of holding themselves up high? Do they ever shiver on frosty nights with their tops against the sky? Do they feel lonely sometimes because they have grown so tall? Do they ever wish they could fly right down and never get up at all? City child, where are you? What you doing now, city child? Where are you? Where you going now, city child? What you up to now? I am a city child I live on the tip top floor Of an old apartment building

With a very quickie door City Child It doesn't matter what you wear, just as long as you are there.

So come on, every guy, grab a girl everywhere. Around the world they'll be dancing They're dancing in the streets This is an invitation across the nation A chance for folks to meet They'll be laughing, singing, and music swinging Dancing in the streets We're down in L.A. every day They're dancing in the streets Let's form a free-strong line Get in time, we're dancing in the streets Across the ocean, too Me and you, we're dancing in the streets We're down in L.A. Come on, give it a try We're gonna show you just why

We're gonna teach you to fly, fly Yeah, come on and zoom, come on and zoom, zoom. Come on and zoom, come on and zoom, come on and zoom, come on and zoom. this program was funded by grants from mcdonald's corporation and mcdonald's restaurants fund and by public television stations the ford foundation and the corporation for public broadcasting Presentation of Zoom was made possible in part by a grant from General Foods Corporation. Thank you.